


how to be a lester

by ravels (orphan_account)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (as per usual), F/M, Family, Florida, Fluff, Introspection, Light Angst, Lists, M/M, dan contemplating his role in the lester family, when DOESN'T my fic have introspection jesus christ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 06:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10938972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ravels
Summary: “how are you so good at. you know. being a lester?” he had fumbled over the words, because somehow he felt that, out of all the important lessons he could learn from loving phil lester, this one would definitely be the hardest. fitting in. fitting in with a family that didn't.





	how to be a lester

“Let's play crazy golf!” Phil says excitedly, hands on the window as they pass the location. Dan’s chin flies from Phil’s shoulder, jerking Dan out of sleep.

“Hush, Phil, Dan’s asleep!” Mr. Lester whispers urgently, only waking him up more.

“Not anymore,” Dan grunts, lifting his head and blinking blearily.

They're in the very back row of seats in the grey-brown Honda minivan, spilling all over each other with little leg room and plenty of head room. It's supposedly the “love seat.” Somehow, Dan can't find any love for it within him.

“Anyway, crazy golf. Didn't we do that, like, literally last summer?” He yawns, one hand resting determinedly on Phil’s left arm and the other hand stretching out behind him, catlike.

“Yes,” Phil confirms, “and the summer before that, and the one before that,  _ and _ the spri—”

“You really  _ are  _ a sucker for tradition,” Dan groans, wearily rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. The Florida afternoon sun is bright and warm, staining his eyelids a welcoming orange.

“Welcome to the Lester family, Dan,” Martyn shrugs from the middle row of seats, and Dan mentally adds that to his list.

_ How to be a Lester: _

_ 1\. Value tradition. _

 

 

They should really give out a handbook at the beginning of the process, because being a Lester is really fucking  _ hard _ .

He had tried asking Cornelia once, one Christmas dinner in an unnamed year, like, “How the fuck do you do it so easily?”

Cornelia, it seemed, had not had any trouble at all adjusting to the new, Lester-ian ways of living. Which didn't make sense, as she was Swedish, making her even more distanced than he was. Perhaps it was easier than it seemed.

That Christmas, the Lesters hadn't let him help with cooking just yet, giving him the warm “you’re always welcome in our home and also you don't have to do any work” treatment. On the flipside, Cornelia was at the counter, chopping green peppers for Mrs. Lester’s Christmas stew.  

“Do  _ what _ so easily?” She had asked, speaking carefully as she placed down the knife. One dark eyebrow was cocked gracefully against her pale forehead. “If you mean, you know,  _ that _ , I really can't—”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Cornelia, I’m not fucking thirteen, you know. I know how to have sex.”

And she had flushed, bristling slightly. “So then what  _ am _ I so good at exactly? Please inform me, I’m dying to know.”

“Singing? Being nice? Being incredibly smart?” Martyn had chimed in from the next room as he set down silverware.

“Shut it, asshole,” Cornelia had shot back, turning to Dan with a tired smile. “So, you were saying?”

“How are you so good at. You know. Being a Lester?” He had fumbled over the words, because somehow he felt that, out of all the important lessons he could learn from loving Phil Lester, this one would definitely be the hardest. Fitting in. Fitting in with a family that didn't.

Cornelia had paused for a moment, confused. Then her face softened, her blue eyes squinting in thought. Her fingers were drumming a rhythm on the countertop. “I don't know, Dan,” she had told him, finally. “I think… I think it’s something that just happened, really. I don't remember when.”

Maybe this was something he’d never learn, no matter how hard he tried.

 

Later that day, though, Phil had come into their shared room and flopped on the bed next to Dan, making the mattress give a loud squeal of discomfort before popping back into shape. Phil had rolled over and looked his best friend in the eye, warm and full of love.

Somehow, even after two years, or three, or four, or whatever, Phil had still managed to make Dan’s heart want to run off and join the circus. In moments like these, Dan’s body was an entire three-ring circus all on its own, full of acrobats and lion tamers and fireworks, leaping and popping and roaring all at once. It was truly remarkable how many conflicting feelings he managed to experience whenever Phil was around. He couldn't name them all, really.

There was friendship, of course, that welcoming, hot cocoa-y feeling that was always there, from 2009 to this indeterminate year, holding him in a permanent, unrelenting embrace, that platonic love that he eternally craved.

There was romantic love, which was relatively new to him; before Phil, he had associated it with bubblegum lip gloss and minty breath. After Phil… after Phil, well, he just associates it with Phil. 

There was familial love, the cause of which he didn't really understand. Somehow, with Phil, familial love felt entirely different than romantic love, and entirely different than it was with his own family. Phil was his family, yes, but in a  _ different way _ . He had been yet to understand how all this worked.

“Heard from Cornelia you were a bit down earlier today,” Phil had said quietly. “Just thought I’d. You know. Come and offer what comfort I could.”

Comfort. Oh, boy, comfort. That was the feeling. That was the feeling Phil gave Dan, right there in a nutshell.

_ How to be a Lester: _

_ 2\. Offer comfort whenever needed. _

 

Dan considers adding “Play I-Spy at any given opportunity” to the list, but decides it doesn’t work with the general vibe of the list.

On the plane, true to character, Phil had done just so. He had rushed to take the window seat as soon as they had boarded, and then had begun a game of I-Spy just after takeoff.

Unfortunately, the American Airlines cabin was no more colorful than Dan’s bedroom, all black and grey and white chrome and plastic splotched with navy upholstery. They had run out of objects to “spy” quite quickly.

His carry-on had been light, holding only a book, his phone, and a few chargers. By that point, he was just looking over the  _ Sky Mall _ magazines in the pocket of the seat in front of him, mindlessly flipping through the pages. Dan had then done the same, leafing through the mundane catalogue for something even mildly of interest to him.

Dan remembers Phil giving him a tap on his shoulder, chuckling slightly about a pair of “Vantablack” headphones advertised on the tech page. Dan had grinned, pointing to an item in his magazine advertised as “cereal-scented body wash.”

“Yes, please,” Phil had whispered, smiling widely. “Sign me up right now.”

And when the magazines reached the end of their lifetime and were nestled safely back in their pockets, Phil had leaned over and rested his head comfortably on Dan’s shoulder, snuggling into the crook of his neck. 

(Dan distinctly remembers the woman on the middle aisle seat giving them an odd look.)

“What’re you doing, you buffoon?” Dan had asked lazily, cozying into Phil’s head.

Phil murmured a reply: “Making the best out of a boring situation.”

Dan adds it to the list.

_ How to be a Lester: _

_ 3\. Make the best out of every situation. _

 

The visit to NASA is a true family event at its finest.

Cornelia and Martyn are there, as well as Dan and Phil, so the comfortability of being a unit is in full force for both groups. There are no third wheels and no extra screws. Just them. In tandem.

Also, at the space program museum. That's a thing that's happening.

The irony in the Lesters’ love of space is rather funny, actually. As clumsy and anti-analytical as they are in general, and as terrible as they would actually  _ be _ as astronauts, they all possess an intrinsic adoration for the great beyond.

At the museum, Martyn takes every opportunity to take pictures of Cornelia, as does Phil of Dan. Later, Dan posts some of them, but they're only a small fraction of the grand total. Phil’s photos encompass almost everything they see, from the old, clunky shuttles to the new, sleek satellites.

_ How to be a Lester: _

_ 4\. Savor every moment. _

They all take one group picture outside the entrance. Martyn and Phil are in the center, the truest Lesters of them all. On the ends are the Lesters-by-extension, Dan and Cornelia. Dan’s got his arm around Martyn and Phil’s around Cornelia, but for the sake of all that matters, they're a unit now. They've become more cohesive as a group, just in this short week in Florida, and Dan doesn't know how or why. It just. Happened.

He still has much to learn, but being part of this group, this little Gordian’s knot tied with threads from Sweden and Rossendale and Berkshire… well, that certainly is something.

 

It’s strange how love can manifest itself sometimes.

For Dan and Phil, love is Dan taking pictures of Phil while the latter is locked outside, tweeting them, teasing him. Their love is a perpetual stalemate between two forces, melted together to form a unit.

For the Lester parents, on the other hand, love is easy, gentle, comfortable. Their love isn’t turbulent, made better by age like a sweet wine. It's warm and slow, a Florida bayou compared to Dan and Phil’s rapids.

As different as they are, both are love, one and the same.

“Some lemonade, dear?” Mrs. Lester (Katherine?) asks Dan when he arrives in the kitchen. “I’ve only just made it.”

“Yes please,” Dan replies, and takes his glass out to the porch where Phil is still pretending to fume about being locked outside.

“Mum loves you more than she loves me,” Phil mutters, taking a sip of Dan’s lemonade without bothering to ask.

“Guess it's just because of my natural charm,” Dan shrugs wryly. He knows full well it's not true. Katherine Lester loves her children more than anything on Earth, so if anything it's the opposite.

“Mm, I guess so,” Phil replies with a small smile.

Or maybe Katherine Lester loves them equally. Phil loves Dan and the rest of his family equally, so that would make sense. That's kind of a quintessential ‘Lester’ thing to do.

Dan adds that to the list, too.

_ How to be a Lester: _

_ 5\. Distribute your love evenly. _

 

Really, though, all the things on the list are kind of subsets of one giant ‘Lester’ mannerism. They always talked about simplifying relevant information in school, so maybe this is another case like that.

The category was simple enough. A single step, the hardest thing in the world for some, the easiest for others.

_ How to be a Lester:  _

_ Love. _

Dan knows he can do that. Phil had shown him he could, right there on day one, the very first day they had talked on that indeterminate date once upon a time. Phil had shown him and Dan knows he must have learned in a flash because he had loved Phil from the very beginning and now he knows how, like he knows the back of his hand, like he knows the imperfections of Phil, like he knows the eccentricities of the Lester family.

Maybe, after all, it wouldn't be so hard to be a Lester.

Or maybe he had been one all along.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed! this took a while to write. im really glad theyre staying in florida as disgustingly long as they are.  
> please leave comments! u can follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/jakfruut) and [tumblr](http://fringeheads.tumblr.com/)


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